Called to Our Cross

Bible Passage: John 13:31–38

Introduction: Starting here in John 13:31 with Jesus self designation as the Son of Man Jesus is bringing to mind for the disciples the servant figure from

Isaiah 49:3 “And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.””

JESUS IS ISRAEL’S FULFILLMENT!

and John then brings this long good-bye to a close in

John 16:33 “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.””

Christ is the ultimate model of commitment and sacrificial love, as demonstrated by His imminent crucifixion.

Big Idea: Our commitment to Christ is expressed through our sacrificial love for others in the church family and our readiness to follow Him wherever He leads, trusting in His purpose-plan even if its extremely hard.

Summary: In this passage, Jesus prepares His disciples for the reality of His departure. He not only commands them to love one another but also reveals the profound implications of being His disciple. Through this preparation of His disciples, He highlights the tension between commitment and impending trials, setting a foundation for what it truly means to follow Him wholeheartedly, reminding them that this allegiance will demand sacrifice.

Application: This sermon can encourage Christians to count the cost of discipleship and to understand that following Christ may lead to trials and test their faith. It can serve as a motivational call to remain steadfast in their commitment to Jesus and to exhibit mutual love even when faced with difficulties or temptations.

Jesus is portrayed throughout scripture as the ultimate servant leader who brings God the Father glory, who exemplifies love and sacrifice. His journey leads to the cross, which becomes the pinnacle of His commitment, setting the blueprint for His followers who are called to bring Glory to God the Father, love and serve sacrificially, even to the point of giving their lives sacrificially so that all might believe in Jesus.

FOLLOWING CHRIST TO OUR CROSS...

1. Reveals God’s glory

John 13:31–33 “When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’”

Jesus sets the stage for His departure and emphasizes the glory of God both in Him and through His forthcoming sacrifice. His departure marks a critical turning point in the disciples' lives. This prepares them, and us, to understand that following Christ involves embracing His path of selflessness and sacrificial love, even in the midst of life’s harshness.

By understanding this instruction, we are invited to see that true discipleship glorifies God as it follows Christ closely in loving others sacrificially. The Son would glorify the Father, and the Father would glorify the Son (13:32); they would mutually put on display one another’s glory.

Putting on display the greatness of God, in fact, is what we are called to as well. Everything we do—in thought, word, and deed—is to be done for the glory of God (see 1 Cor 10:31).

Ephesians 2:4–10 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

We walk in the works He has prepared beforehand and Jesus makes it clear central to that set of works is to love each other sacrificially.

FOLLOWING CHRIST TO OUR CROSS...

2. Reveals Christ’s love to all people

John 13:34–35 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.””

It’s a NEW commandment!

It’s source and standard are different.

It’s goal is to reveal we follow Jesus!

Jesus' command to love one another as He has loved us, setting a new standard for discipleship that is both challenging and transformative. This love is not superficial but rooted in selflessness and sacrifice, reflecting Christ's immeasurable love. In times of challenge as we go toward our crosses, this command becomes even more vital, as it is through sacrificial love that we and this church family are identified as Christ's disciples. It reveals Christ’s love to all people!

When Jesus was on earth, how would someone know that a person was a disciple of Jesus?

The answer is easy. They would watch them.

If they followed Jesus around from place to place and listened to his teaching, then they were one of his disciples. That’s fine when he’s on the earth, but now what are they going to do? How will anyone recognize them as his disciples if he isn’t around? “They will know you are my disciples because I am forming you into a new community that will operate on principles of love” (vv. 34–35; my paraphrase). Three times in these two verses Jesus says, “one another.” The “one another s” are his disciples. There is to be a community of disciples identifiable to the world by their love for one another. He is not leaving the disciples alone. He is leaving them together.

Because of their relationship with him, they have a relationship with one another.

He addresses them all as children, an intimate, family term. This is what he is leaving behind: a group of God’s children, a band of brothers and sisters who serve one another in humility and love. That’s what a church is.

I hope to encourage you to embody and enact this radical love as a testament to your commitment and to give witness to the world of the transformative power of God's grace.

Jesus’ love shows who he really is. That same love among his disciples will show who we really are.

Think of some of the different groups you belong to. What do these groups mean to you? Now think about our church family.

What do your brothers and sisters here mean to you?

Is this answer the same or different to your previous one?

Read! John 13 v 34–35; 15 v 12 and v 17 Why do you think this command is repeated so much?

Jesus’ love shows who he really is. That same love among his disciples will show who we really are.

In a school, a teacher noticed a student struggling with her homework while everyone else was playing during recess. Instead of joining her friends, the teacher sat down, guiding her step-by-step until she understood. When asked why she didn’t play, the teacher smiled, saying, 'Because it's more fun to see you succeed.' This reflects the heart of sacrificial love, where we prioritize the needs of others—an essential part of being a loving community in Christ's image.

We need to prioritize our lives around the needs of others in our church family.

The Fuel for Our Love

How are we to love one another as God’s people?

It’s a NEW commandment!

The simple and straightforward answer is as he has loved us. This helps us understand why he describes it as a “new command.” God has always commanded his people to love one another, so it’s not new in the sense of never having been heard before. No, it comes now with newness because of this unique love of Jesus for us which fuels it. Having been loved by Jesus in this extraordinary, unprecedented way, we are to love one another in the same way. The love we are to show is a love we have already received.

Read John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

The direction of our Love

It stands as rather obvious to us in this passage but I will reiterate it for the sake of its importance for its goal. The direction our Sacrificial love is to be for our brothers and sisters in this unique family call the local church.

The depth of our Love

How is the love of Jesus different than any other kind? True love is sacrificial, and none has ever been as sacrificial as Christ’s. Many in this world have been willing to face death for others. But Jesus has done something even greater. He was willing to bear the spiritual death we deserved—being cut off from the love of the Father.

Love does not look at itself—it is absorbed in the object of its love.

Love manifests itself by loving persons in the concrete.

The Love of God, 77

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Welsh Preacher and Writer)

In a small town, a shepherd noticed that one of his sheep had gotten itself stuck in a thorny bush. Instead of simply cutting the sheep loose, he carefully crawled in to extricate it, knowing it would scratch and hurt him. The townspeople laughed, saying, 'That's a bit extra, isn't it?' The shepherd, smiling, replied, 'It’s not about the sheep; it’s about love. I'd rather be scratched than risk losing one of my own.' This is a glimpse of sacrificial love that Christ showed for us and that we should extend to our church family.

The Impact of Our Love

Read John 13:35 “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.””

What will us loving one another result in? We are brothers and sisters in Christ and are called to a new kind of love, a love that is the love of natural siblings, only more sublime (defined: Characterized by nobility ;majestic, of high spiritual, moral, or intellectual worth, not to be excelled supreme!) and with better reasons lying at the bottom than even the love of family members. Jesus promises that this is the way we will prove to a watching world that we belong to him. The love we share will be undeniably supernatural in origin. There will be no other way of accounting for it other than by the truth of Jesus And there will be no limit to its impact. Everyone will be able to deduce this. This promise is good for all contexts and times.

A challenge emerges in light of this and I am going to make it explicitly clear.

A loveless church actually undermines the gospel. Why? Because, as John says elsewhere, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). How can people come to know the God who perfectly expresses love—both within the Trinity and to humanity—if his representatives don’t demonstrate the sacrificial love of Jesus?

They won’t and we will have failed Jesus having undermined the gospel.

Transition: We come now to our last few verses and the huge irony of Peter’s interaction with Jesus. Peter brushes aside Jesus’s command to love one another in a new community of faith. He’s still struggling with Jesus’s announcement that he is leaving and they can’t come with him. He asks Jesus where he’s going (v. 36). Look at the bold statement Peter makes: “I will lay down my life for you” (v. 37). Jesus challenges Peter: “Really? No. In fact, you’re not even going to spend the rest of the evening following me. You will deny me three times before the rooster announces the dawn” (my paraphrase).

We like Peter need to learn that FOLLOWING CHRIST TO OUR CROSS...

3. Reveals our failures and His Divine Grace

John 13:36-38

How incredibly memorable is Peter's bold declaration of allegiance and Jesus' prophetic response highlighting Peter's imminent denial. He is a great illustration for us of the cost of discipleship—a path to our crosses will be marked by human frailty and divine grace. It serves as a warning and a comfort that while we might falter, Christ's love is unwavering. I am challenging us all as believers to remain steadfast, trusting in Christ's strength during your obedient walk to your cross.

Too often we’re exactly like Peter. In our minds we envision ourselves as better disciples than we actually are. Pride will cause us to think too highly of ourselves and then fall flat on our faces.

A young man in a Sunday school class once drew a picture of a waterfall that turned into a rainbow after it hit the rocks— He called the painting “A beautiful mistake”. When the water flows freely despite its hurdles, it teaches us about grace. Just like that rainbow, God’s grace shines even more so through our human frailty, turning our struggles and failures into something beautiful for all to see.

We think like Peter we can go to our cross without the power of God’s Spirit! Peter would have to wait for power until Jesus promise is given in Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.””

Peter reminds and assures us that our failures do not define us; rather, it is our continued pursuit of commitment like Jesus that marks true commitment as His disciples. It is our commitment to love one another sacrificially that we experience the transforming power of the gospel.

It is our continued pursuit of commitment like Jesus as one who was led and strengthened by the Holy Spirit that marks true commitment as disciples of Jesus.

CONCLUSION:

Our commitment to go to our crosses requires a commitment from everyone sacrificially loving one another for God’s glory and that means we need to not be so focused on ourselves. We need to be like this man who went to a yoga class.

There was a man who decided to try yoga for the first time. Attempting a pose called 'downward dog', he ended up tangled and fell over! Despite the embarrassment, he embraced the laughter of those around him. In our spiritual lives, we may find ourselves in tangled situations. Yet, with God’s grace, we’re reminded it’s okay to laugh at our missteps and let His strength guide us back up.

Our commitment to Christ is expressed through our sacrificial love for others in the church family and our readiness to follow Jesus Christ wherever He leads, trusting in His purpose-plan even if its extremely hard. His sacrificial love required Him enduring His death that we might live and experiencing the Fathers just wrath so we are free from a just punishment we should have suffered for eternity.

As we live this way all will know who we follow in this life and the result will be as Jesus has told us it would be in His High priestly prayer in John 17.

John 17:20–23 ““I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

John 17:26 “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.””

May it be so! Let’s pray!!